Android 4.3 (Jellybean) Tips and Tricks

You can speed up the page load speed on your browser by disabling JavaScript.

To do this, open your Browser, then Menu – Settings – Content Settings. Scroll down and untick Enable JavaScript

Please note that this may affect the functionality of some sites.

If your browser does not play Flash items while browsing websites then you may need to enable Flash in the settings.

To do this, open the standard browser. Go to Settings – Advanced – Enable plug-ins. Then select Always On.

To open a web page in a new tab, find a link on a web page. Then press on it and then choose to open the site in a new tab.

Instead of the simple swipe gesture to unlock your phone, you can set a custom one which can be extremely difficult for a thief to guess.

From your homescreen, go to Menu – Settings – Lock screen. Then chose Screen lock and choose Pattern.

It is also a good idea to untick Use visible pattern. Then if someone is watching over your shoulder while you entering your pattern, it will be harder for them to remember the pattern.

If you have forgotten your unlock pattern, then after 5 unsuccessful tries a button will appear saying ‘Forgot pattern’. Press this and you will be asked to enter your Gmail username/password. The phone will then ask for a new unlock pattern. If you don’t have a Gmail account, then you will have to either call your carrier or factory reset your phone.

To delete or remove homescreen widgets, simply press and hold. Then drag the widget to the top-right corner of the screen and into the Trash icon.

If you want to resize your homescreen widgets, then press and hold on a widget for 2 seconds. If the widget is resizable, then an outline will appear around the widget. Simply drag the sides to resize the widget.

If the outline doesn’t appear or you can’t drag the lines, then the widget is a fixed sized widget.

In Contacts press Menu – Settings – Sort list by. Then choose Given name or Family name.

To share or upload a video to services like Facebook or YouTube, simply go to your Video App and long press on a video.

Then select Share via. From here you will be given options to share the video with various services.

if you would prefer to correct your own mistakes, then go to Settings – Language and input. Then select the keyboard you are using and press the Settings icon again.

You should be able to find a predictive text option on this screen.

The standard Android keyboard is good, but not great. There are many third party keyboards available which will improve your typing speed and accuracy.

Go to the Android Market and search for ‘Keyboard’ to see some great alternatives, many of which are more accurate and make typing much easier.
A good one is GoKeyboard.

If you see a warning saying the keyboard will collect all information (including credit cards) just ignore this. This is just a security feature that Android shows for every third-party keyboard that you install.